Lightheaded
by GayClarisseLaRue
Summary: Clarisse would take being humiliated by everyone for loving Silena over hating herself for what she did to her any day. (Ruegard)
The first time Clarisse saw her, she was a kid. They both were, but she somehow managed to still leave her frazzled. Clarisse didn't know why, she knew she was an Aphrodite kid, but something about her, the way she presented herself, and didn't seem to hold anything back, intrigued Clarisse beyond belief.

She went a few years seeing Silena around camp, but never quite talking to her. Over the years she had learned that she was too high up to be talking to Aphrodite kids, she was supposed to hate them. Silena was pretty much the opposite of her. She was _pretty,_ with dark hair, bright eyes, the most gorgeous girl that Clarisse had ever noticed before, and she noticed a _lot_ of pretty girls. Clarisse on the other hand… she always felt dirty. She seemed to have the permanent taste of metal in her mouth, her hair was in knots, and even if she wanted to try and look pretty, she'd be considered a joke.

She'd always felt drawn to the daughter of Aphrodite, though. Not the other ones, no, just Silena fucking Beauregard. That goddamn annoying ass kid that Clarisse had assumed she hated, because why else would her face turn red, why would her pulse speed up, whenever she saw her if she didn't despise her.

During this time, Percy Jackson had introduced himself into her life, which was not something she needed. This, however, was different than how she felt around Silena. When Clarisse saw Percy, she wanted to pounce on him and kick his ass, but when she saw Silena… she just wanted to stare. The feelings were good around the daughter of Aphrodite, and Clarisse enjoyed them. Now that she knew what it felt like to hate someone, she knew she didn't hate the girl. This was something different, something Clarisse didn't know just about yet.

Of course, Clarisse's character judgement was absolutely perfect, like the rest of her, and her hatred towards Percy was the correct way to respond. I mean, everything did go wrong as soon as the little shit got to camp. During this screwed up time though, she had made a friend. His name was Chris, and they got along pretty damn well. So what if everyone thought they were dating, Clarisse knew they weren't. No romantic feelings involved, and Clarisse decided that she wasn't emotionally mature enough to date anyway, that's the reason she's never liked a boy before.

Before she knew it, they were facing a fucking war because of Jackson. Apparantly, she was supposed to be excited about that. Why? Who knows. Who decided that just because she was a daughter of Ares, she had to like war? Ares, she assumed he was the one who thought that. To be completely honest, Clarisse hated the thought of war. She didn't want to think about it, she didn't want to hear about it, and she especially didn't want to be involved in it. Most of her family had gone to war, and when they came back, _if_ they came back, they wouldn't be the same.

Ares probably picked her mom because of that, he must have thought that they would make a ruthless killer of a baby. Her mom seemed to not want that, and her mom never got quite as angry at her as Ares did. Her mom was incredibly nice, and why she wanted to get with Ares anyway was always a mystery to Clarisse. It felt like Ares was always looking over her shoulder, waiting for her to lose so he could punish her. That was the main inspiration for Clarisse to train as hard as she did, she didn't want displease her father, she didn't want her father to even know she existed. But with her luck, she was the one he paid most attention to. Whenever he could, he gave her a quest, or a challenge, and Clarisse honestly thought that he was just waiting for her to fail so he could humiliate her. Those moments when Ares would get angry and stand over her glaringly, one of his fists balling up and being held above her, _that's_ what gave her nightmares, not losing, not being killed by a monster, only her dad.

Besides that, though, Clarisse thought her life was okay. She had a good friend, food, shelter, and permission to be angry at everything and anything. She was getting sick and tired about both her siblings, and Chris' siblings, teasing them about liking each other. She thought it had no purpose and would just piss her off, but it ended up bringing her something much better than the fun of fighting an annoying Hermes kid.

It brought her that daughter of Aphrodite that she couldn't take her eyes off whenever she saw her, it left her feeling warm and fuzzy, feeling nervous for no fucking reason whenever that high pitched, bubbly voice said her name.

"Hey! You're Clarisse, right? I have a question." She said. It was the first time she had spoken to her since they were both 13. Clarisse's eyes had widened and she had to blink a few times to make sure it wasn't a nice, quiet dream that she would forget when she woke up. It wasn't.

It took a few moments for her to respond, as she couldn't decide what to say, and how to say it. She couldn't embarrass herself in front of the people walking past her, no, she couldn't be _nice_ about it.

Before guilt could register in her brain, she spoke sharply and bitterly. "What do you want, Aphrodite spawn. She regretted it immediately after Silena's beautiful face fell. Clarisse almost apologized and told her that she was just cranky from a lack of sleep. She didn't want to upset the girl, which wasn't a new feeling for her, but she had gotten used to it. She wanted to hug her and say sorry, to take her somewhere more private so she could be nice to her, but she couldn't, because that would be weird, and it was a mile out of her comfort zone.

"Oh." Silena mutters. "I can go if you want, sorry." Her hands fidgeted as she looked down, and it made Clarisse want to cry knowing that she had made the girl sad. Call her strange, call her empathetic, call her a wuss, but she didn't care at this point.

"No!" Clarisse replies, a little too loudly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, please don't be upset." A few campers who were around them turned their heads and gaped, knowing damn well that those words were never supposed to come out of her mouth.

The embarrassment faded away almost instantly when Silena's gorgeous smile reappeared.

"Do you like Chris Rodriguez?"

Gods fucking dammit.

She told the girl no, but she insisted, and told her she'd help her. Clarisse hesitantly accepted the offer, getting angry at herself. _She didn't like Chris._ The only reason she had lied was because the pretty girl was practically begging her to say yes, and the words fumbled out of her mouth suddenly. Silena was fucking up her thinking with her nice sounding voice, and Clarisse wished that she could shut her up.

When Silena started talking about Charles, she was obviously slightly obsessed. She never stopped telling Clarisse about him, how nice he was, how good looking he was, how caring he was. How not like Clarisse he was.

"How do you know you like him? Maybe you just wanna be his friend." Clarisse had said one day, after Silena has stopped gushing to her.

"What do you mean?"

"What's the difference between liking someone as a friend and wanting to stick your tongue down their throat?"

Silena laughed at that comment. "Don't pretend you don't know, how do you feel about Chris?"

Clarisse sighs. "Just tell me how you know you like him."

That drew a strange reaction from Silena. She looked at Clarisse caringly. "Everytime I see him, I wanna throw up. He makes me feel comfortable, but flustered. I feel connected to him."

Clarisse nodded, it taking her a couple seconds to register. She felt lightheaded and her breath hitched. Silena didn't seem to notice.

"I have to go, Jackson arranged a time for me to kick his ass with a sword." Clarisse told her. She lied.

Silena grinned, hugging Clarisse. "I'll see you later."

Clarisse got away from her as soon as she could, and went into the woods, feeling weak and lightheaded. She cried, and for once she knew how Silena felt.

After the labyrinth, Clarisse seemed to have a permanent feeling of nausea. Chris was hurt, inside and out, and she wanted to help but she couldn't.

She was _angry._ She wanted to knock someone out, stab someone, injure something in general. It was terrifying, and she couldn't stand it. She hated the uncontrollable urge to fight, it made her antsy. Silena was there through it all.

Clarisse cried a lot. She wasn't sad, the tears always came when she was in the arena, before, after, or even during fights. She wanted this all to be over so much, and she hated everyone for it. Nobody had seen her like this, she'd never seen herself like this. She couldn't handle this, and it killed her, because she had to handle this. Nobody seemed as pissed off as she did.

There was no way to escape it, she had to keep going and hope that the war would happen as soon as possible so this could be _over_ already. She didn't want to exist anymore.

Beckendorf was dead, and Silena was heartbroken. Clarisse didn't know how to handle this either. Sure, she wasn't fond of Silena's love for him, but it made her heart hurt to see Silena like she was, she just wanted to do something to help. She was holding back from telling Clarisse everything, and Clarisse knew that. She didn't understand, Silena would come to her crying, and as soon as she left, Clarisse's own tears would come. She wanted to be happy, she wanted Silena to be happy.

Clarisse hated everyone, even Silena. She was stressed, and she snapped at anyone in her path. The Apollo cabin had realized this, and weren't fond of getting punched whenever Clarisse came near them. Still, she couldn't handle what they did. It was prank, and she should've been a little angry, but instead she didn't leave her cabin. She cried the whole time the rhyme curse was on her cabin. They didn't _understand_ how much pressure she was under, she was the best fighter in the Ares cabin, they were counting on her, all of them. How dare they treat her like they did, they needed her, and since they all seemed to hate her, she quit. She wasn't gonna do it and nobody could make her, or her cabin.

She almost gave in when Silena came back to get her, and she wished she would've. Her petty grudge had turned into something bigger, and she couldn't stop hating Silena for trying to help.

Fuck her, making Clarisse love her. She'd gone for years not noticing how Clarisse felt, crushing on _boys,_ calling Clarisse a friend. She deserved to fail.

By the time she was over it, it was too late. Nobody else cried as much as she did, and nobody knew what to do about it.

Clarisse didn't leave her cabin. She wanted to go home, she wanted to leave and not have to do that. She had notebooks upon notebooks full of Silena's last words. She hung them up, everywhere. The cabin was filled with the last thing that Clarisse would ever hear from Silena fucking Beauregard. She felt like she was being ripped apart, and she didn't care about her dad, she didn't care about the camp, she didn't care about how anyone felt about her anymore. She'd take the embarrassment of being changed by her, of going to fight after throwing such a fit.

Clarisse would take being humiliated by everyone for loving Silena over hating herself for what she did to Silena any day.


End file.
